Poetry
Santa Cruz is dedicated to nurturing the poetry community and bringing
poetry to the larger community in Santa Cruz County. We present poetry readings
at Bookshop Santa Cruz and other locations in
Santa Cruz County, and the Poet/Speak open reading. We also provide free
information on other poetry-related events in the area.

Poet/Speak Open Reading
with featured reader Nancy Hofmann.
Nancy Hofmann is trying to retire these days but still makes time for
leading the monthly True Tales Writers Group, a community writers group which has just celebrated its sixth anniversary
and is composed of twelve talented local authors who write and share stories of their lives. She is an award-winning
local poet, writes nonfiction, and is working on two books this summer. She has just returned from a ten-day intensive
writers retreat in northeastern Scotland. Nancy is a fourth-generation teacher, maintains her current credential
and teaches English to ESL students at the Literacy Program. 2015 is her year to travel and she always watches for her Muse!Main Library upstairs Meeting Room, 224 Church St., Santa Cruz.
[ map ]
Free.
Open reading signup at 1:50, 3-to-5-minute limit. Hosted by Len Anderson and Joanie Maro.

Poetry
Santa Cruz events are supported, in part, by a grant from Arts Council of Santa Cruz County.
Some readings are supported by
Poets & Writers, Inc. through a grant it has received from the James Irvine Foundation.
Poetry Santa Cruz is also grateful for the support of its members and donors, In Celebration of the Muse, and those who donated
in memory of Maude Meehan, Kathleen Flowers and Hermie Medley. The William James Association acted as our fiscal sponsor for our first four years.
Events are sponsored by Bookshop Santa Cruz, Capitola Book Café, Santa Cruz Public Library, Cabrillo College English Dept.,
UCSC Division of Humanities and Creative Writing Program, Darling House, Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, and KUSP.
Membership premiums have been donated by Graywolf Press, the University of Pittsburgh Press,
Robert Sward, Coffee House Press, Copper Canyon Press, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
A voluntary donation of $3 may be requested at venues where collection of donations is permitted.

Priscilla (Tilly) Washburn Shaw

 Tilly Washburn Shaw, literary scholar, poet, UCSC faculty member 1966 to 1993,
and founding Board member of Poetry Santa Cruz, passed away peacefully in her home on July 21. A celebration of her life is being planned for late September.
Read her obituary.
Her first book of poems, Swimming Closer to Shore, is
on display in the poetry section in Bookshop Santa Cruz.
Publication of her second collection, Hanging out in the Ordinary, is forthcoming from
Hummingbird Press. Three poems from Swimming Closer to Shore
were read by Dennis Morton on The Poetry Show on July 28 and two shows devoted to her work are planned.
A 137-page interview by Sarah Rabkin is on the
UCSC website included in the UCSC institutional history series and may be downloaded as a PDF file. Update for August 2:
The obituary appears in the August 2 Santa Cruz Sentinel on page 6C.

 Santa Cruz Writes sponsors phren-Z,
but also the Young Writers Program. The Young Writers Program
brings volunteer mentors into classrooms to help young students develop their writing skills. It also publishes student writing.
Volunteer mentors and donations are needed.
The program is hosting a benefit fundraiser November 22, 6 to 9 pm
at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History. The Young Writers Program was honored with a 2014 Be The Difference Award,
presented by the Santa Cruz Volunteer Center at their annual event on October 28 at the Paradox Hotel.

The Good Times
prints a monthly Poetry Corner.
Articles about poetry events, authors and books also appear in Good Times and the
Santa Cruz Sentinel. www.HillTromper.com
has a poetry column posted on Wednesdays, The Outdoor Poet,
edited by Robert Sward with contributions by invitation.
Copies of earlier issues of Redwood Coast Review (edited by Stephen Kessler with Contributing Editor Daniela Hurezanu)
are available in the Library Main Branch lobby and in Bookshop Santa Cruz and regularly feature poetry, book reviews and other articles of literary interest.

Local Periodical Poetry Publications

 Alehouse Narratives is a literary magazine and a six-week reading series at Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing.
Learn more on their website.

 The Fall 2014 issue of Catamaran Literary Reader
is available from the website and at Bookshop Santa Cruz.
 See the News page for more details and news.
 See the Writers Cove page for information on writing workshops.
The Writers Cove is offering a 4-week poetry workshop series with Dennis Morton, February 4 to 26.
 See the Submissions page for guidelines and to submit your work.

 The Autumn 2014 issue of Monterey Poetry Review posted on the website
with poems by sixteen poets, collages by T. Mike Walker and an interview of
John Laue by John Dotson.
Submissions may be sent via email with deadline of June 15, 2014.

 The Winter 2015 issue #12 of phren-Z features poetry by
David Allen Sullivan, translation by Stephen Kessler of poetry by Luis Cernuda, fiction by
Wallace Baine, Elizabeth McKenzie, and Jill Wolfson, nonfiction by Carolyn Burke and
Patrice Vecchione, and visual art by Daniella Woolf.
All available online at the website. The Live Reading is on Thursday,
March 5 at Bookshop Santa Cruz. Submit your work now for consideration.

 The deadline for submissions for the 2015 issue of Porter Gulch Review
was December 1, 2014. David Sullivan is back from China. The reading for the 2014 edition was held on October 24.

 The 2015 Red Wheelbarrow National Edition submission deadline was February 15, 2015.
The annual reading from the 2014 magazine was again held in the Poetry Center San Jose Well-Red series on in Works/San Jose gallery.

 Sunnyvale Public Library calls for submissions for its ebook, deadline November 30, 2014.

is the author of Come Down to Earth, (Bauhan 2014), which won the May Sarton New Hampshire Prize.
 Curt Anderson

is the author of The Occasionist, (Hip Pocket Press, 2014).
 Rudy Calderón is the author of Mexican-American My Hybrid Blood.
 Franco Juárez y Cahue is the author of Palabra Franca, a collection of poems in Spanish.
 Carolyn Brigit Flynns collection of poems, Communion: In Praise of the Sacred Earth, was
published in April, 2014 by White Cloud Press in Ashland, OR. The book launch reading, with accompaniment by Shelley Phillips on harp, was
held on May 2, 2014 in the Pacific Cultural Center.
 Erica Goss latest book is Vibrant Words: Ideas and Inspirations
for Poets from Pushpen Press, released in April 2014.
 J.P. Dancing Bears latest books are Love Is a Burning Building, (FutureCycle Press, 2013)
and The Abandoned Eye (FutureCycle Press, 2012) is available online at Amazon.com.
 Robin Lysne

is the author of Poems for the Lost Deer
(Blue Bone Books, 2014).
 Douglas McClellans new collection of poems is So Many Chairs
(Many Names Press, 2013).
 Poet and Aikido teacher Linda Holiday is the author of
Journey to the Heart of Aikido: The Teachings of Motomichi Anno Sensei.
 Ellen Bass has a new collection of poems,
Like a Beggar, published by Copper Canyon Press, was released in February 2014.
She read with Danusha Laméris on March 11.
 Kyle Shanebeck is the author of Awake the Reflections, available from
Amazon.com
His website is kyleshanebeck.com/ Charles Atkinsons latest chapbook is World News, Local Weather
from Finishing Line Press, now available for prepublication purchase ordering.
 Danusha Laméris first collection of poems, The Moons of August, has been selected
by Naomi Shihab Nye to receive the 2013 Autumn House Poetry Prize and was published by Autumn House Press in early 2014.
 Patricia Zylius is the author of Once a Vibrant Field: Poems about Tom Cuthbertson
from Finishing Line Press, now available for prepublication purchase ordering.
 Mary Addems Carr is the author of Trajectories: Selected Poems 20072012,
published via On Demand Books on the Espresso Book Machine at Bookshop Santa Cruz.
 Pamela OShaughnessy has published Figments and Other Poems
(Laika Press, 2013), a comprehensive collection of her poetry to date.
 John Laues latest book is a collection of senryu: Word Gains
(Writers and Lovers Studio, 2013). His latest chapbook, Shadows, was published in January by
Finishing Line Press.
Also, his book Colma (City of the Dead/ Elegy for Skeptics) was reissued in February in a new
augmented edition with photos he took of that cemetery city (Futurecycle Press, 2013).
His chapbook A Confluence of Voices was published in 2012,
by Finishing Line Press.
An interview with him and a selection of poems from A Confluence of Voices is featured in the newest issue of
The Seventh Quarry, an international journal out of Swansea, Wales (available by purchasing the issue).
His books are available at Bookshop Santa Cruz and Capitola Book Café.
 Dahlia Seroussi is the author of What I Know
from Finishing Line Press, now available for prepublication purchase ordering.
 Lisa Allen Ortizs second chapbook is Self Portrait as a Clock
from Finishing Line Press, now available for ordering.
 Helene Simkin Jara has published her first book, Because I Had To,
a collection of award-winning short stories, poems, monologues and plays. Available
from Amazon.com.
 Joanna Martins second book of poetry is Where Stars Begin
available from Hummingbird Press. The release reading was held
March 16 at the Cabrillo Horticulture Center.
 Stephen Kessler has two new books out. Scratch Pegasus is the ninth
collection of his own poems and is published by Swan Scythe Press. Poems of Consummation is a collection of
his translations of poems by the Spanish poet Vicente Aleixandre and is published by Black Widow Press.
 Dane Cervines new book of poetry is How Therapists Dance
from Plain View Press.
 Anna Citrino is the author of Saudade
from Finishing Line Press and is now available for purchase.
 Peggy Heinrichs seventh book of poetry is Forward Moving Shadows: A Tanka Memoir
with photographs by John Bolivar. Available from iUniverse and the author.
 Michael Wolfe is the translator for Cut These Words into My Stone: Ancient Greek Epitaphs
with a foreword by Richard P. Martin and published by Johns Hopkins University Press. He read at the Gabriella Cafe Monthly Literary Salon
on December 4 and brought his surprising tale of the oldest artful writing in the Western world to the annual Northern California
Phi Beta Kappa symposium at Asilomar in the opening presentation on Friday, February 15.
See reviews in Poetry and
The Arts Fuse.
 Lynika Cruz is the author of the chapbook If We Never Went Home, being published in December 2012
by Finishing Line Press and may be ordered now. Early orders are encouraged since orders help determine the size of the printing.
Her memoir Beggars CAN Be Choosers was published by Global Publishing in August 2012.
 C. J. Sages latest book is Open House.
 Patrice Vecchiones book The Knot Untied, is available
at Bookshop Santa Cruz and through the books website www.theknotuntied.net.
The website also includes an extensive list of the author events,
including a reading at Bookshop Santa Cruz on April 2.
 Nick Herbert is the author of Harlot Nature, 2012, Sea Creature Press.
 Frances Hatfield is the author of Rudiments of Flight, available now from Wings Press.
 Dion Farquhar is the author of Wonderful Terrible, available from Main Street Rag.
 Joan Safajeks collection of poems is In Deep Time, published in 2012.
She passed away on November 10, 2012.
 James Maughns third collection, These Peripheries, is now published in 2012
by Otoliths Books in Australia.
 Peter Nash is the winner of the 2011 Off The Grid Press Award for Poets Over 60.
His collection Coyote Bush: Poems From the Lost Coast was published in 2012, available from Off The Grid Press.
He read on August 18 at 5:30 pm in Felix Kulpa Gallery.
 Erica Goss is the winner of the 2011 Many Mountains Moving Poetry Contest.
Her chapbook Wild Place was published in 2012, available from Finishing Line Press.
She was interviewed by Dennis Morton on The Poetry Show on Sunday, August 5. The show may be heard or downloaded at The Poetry Show Blog.
She read with Catherine Barnett at 7:30 pm on August 14 at Bookshop Santa Cruz.
 David Sullivans book of poems in multiple voices about the Iraq war
is Every Seed of the Pomegranate, published by Tebot Bach, June 2012. The Publication Celebration Reading
was held July 15 in the Cabrillo College Horticulture Center.